Further thoughts provoked by looking through my odd cookbook collection.
Browsing through a second hand bookshop one day I discovered a real gem of a cookbook from ‘the bachelor kitchen’ genre. Entitled The New Wolf in Chef’s Clothing, this recipe collection looks like a kids cartoon book. It is in fact a step-by-step cooking guide in which the central protagonist is a cartoon wolf (a reflection of the predatory lothario hidden in every male).
Written by Robert H. Loeb, a former Esquire cook and drink editor and published in 1958, the book is dedicated by the author to: ‘my father, and my father’s father, and my father’s father’s father, right back to Adam, all of whom spent their lives as the passive victims of feminine culinary caprice’. Ah, here is cooking as Adam’s retribution against Eve’s original sin. Adam is tossing that apple right back in Eve’s face in the form of a tarte tatin. Indeed, Loeb says the purpose of his book is ‘to liberate the male, to unshackle him from the role of refrigerator vulture, pantry pirate, from being a parasitic gourmet forced to feed on the leftovers of female cookery’.
The book’s focus is on entertaining, wooing women through cookery and booze concoctions, BBQing, meat dishes and canapés to have at soirees of various kinds. No everyday cooking, no cooking for the kids or in-laws or meals to impress the boss. Menus are graded according to type of date (and I don’t mean the central ingredient in a sticky pudding). If she’s athletic, make her the mignon et béarnaise, if she’s an indoor type, the lamb chops etc, All gastronomic foreplay until Mr. Wolf settles down with Miss Wolf, who will promptly take her place at the stove, transforming the bachelor kitchen into domesticated space.
This book is wonderful and makes me laugh. The men’s cook books and new bloke cooking shows of today are vastly more sophisticated in their approach than The New Wolf in Chef’s Clothing. Today’s bachelor kitchen is not untouched by feminism. Indeed both Jamie Oliver and a celeb chef like Bill Granger do deal with family cooking and cooking for kids. Granger in particular projects an image of a competent dad in the kitchen, serving up every day meals to his wife and kids with his phosphorescent smile and unbesmerched white t-shirt. Ian ‘Hewy’ Hewitson is another example, albeit one that appeals more to the mature cook, whose dishes are primarily everyday fodder for the busy family.
And yet the whole idea that men need to be enticed into the kitchen with the promise of danger, fun and sex is still something that persists in food media aimed at men.
I know a lot of men who cook would disagree with me …
Browsing through a second hand bookshop one day I discovered a real gem of a cookbook from ‘the bachelor kitchen’ genre. Entitled The New Wolf in Chef’s Clothing, this recipe collection looks like a kids cartoon book. It is in fact a step-by-step cooking guide in which the central protagonist is a cartoon wolf (a reflection of the predatory lothario hidden in every male).
Written by Robert H. Loeb, a former Esquire cook and drink editor and published in 1958, the book is dedicated by the author to: ‘my father, and my father’s father, and my father’s father’s father, right back to Adam, all of whom spent their lives as the passive victims of feminine culinary caprice’. Ah, here is cooking as Adam’s retribution against Eve’s original sin. Adam is tossing that apple right back in Eve’s face in the form of a tarte tatin. Indeed, Loeb says the purpose of his book is ‘to liberate the male, to unshackle him from the role of refrigerator vulture, pantry pirate, from being a parasitic gourmet forced to feed on the leftovers of female cookery’.
The book’s focus is on entertaining, wooing women through cookery and booze concoctions, BBQing, meat dishes and canapés to have at soirees of various kinds. No everyday cooking, no cooking for the kids or in-laws or meals to impress the boss. Menus are graded according to type of date (and I don’t mean the central ingredient in a sticky pudding). If she’s athletic, make her the mignon et béarnaise, if she’s an indoor type, the lamb chops etc, All gastronomic foreplay until Mr. Wolf settles down with Miss Wolf, who will promptly take her place at the stove, transforming the bachelor kitchen into domesticated space.
This book is wonderful and makes me laugh. The men’s cook books and new bloke cooking shows of today are vastly more sophisticated in their approach than The New Wolf in Chef’s Clothing. Today’s bachelor kitchen is not untouched by feminism. Indeed both Jamie Oliver and a celeb chef like Bill Granger do deal with family cooking and cooking for kids. Granger in particular projects an image of a competent dad in the kitchen, serving up every day meals to his wife and kids with his phosphorescent smile and unbesmerched white t-shirt. Ian ‘Hewy’ Hewitson is another example, albeit one that appeals more to the mature cook, whose dishes are primarily everyday fodder for the busy family.
And yet the whole idea that men need to be enticed into the kitchen with the promise of danger, fun and sex is still something that persists in food media aimed at men.
I know a lot of men who cook would disagree with me …
2 comments:
A Fantastic range of modern and classic Chef Clothing are available at sensible prices to help create that perfect dining experience.
This is really great. Am thinking to buy chef clothes for myself. And I found your blog which is really great.
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